As Kenyans prepare to elect leaders, they must understand what good leaders are and their absolute necessity in society. The proverb warns them that "if the leader limps, the herd will not reach pastures."

And can a herd or society avoid leadership? Though, say sheep may never have elections - though we don't know - nature seems to abhor vacuum of leadership in society as much as it abhors a vacuum in other things.

Without understanding the need of good leadership, Kenyans are bent on committing suicide by electing bad leaders merely because these characters are from their ethnic communities or parties, have given them pittances of money or don't care whether good leaders are elected or not.

Uninformed, voters will be enveloped in total darkness from which, instead of electing good leaders, they will elect their enslavers, oppressors, carnivores and vultures.

For those who will care to read, leaders are people who show others the way. Without good leaders, society will be blind and unable to reach its destination.

And people need leadership because life is a journey from childhood to old age, from death to life, from low to high, from bad to good, from hunger to food, from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from ignorance to knowledge, from failure to success and from poverty to prosperity.

This journey is hard and cannot be traveled alone. It must be traveled by many together. But to travel and reach destination, leaders must show society the way.

To show society the way leaders must know where it is going with eyes of the body, soul and mind. Equally, society is like a vehicle in the night and leaders its headlights. Without good headlights society will see nothing. Instead it will court disaster.

To survive life disasters, society must have leaders who see and lead it forwards. Good leaders never take society backwards. To have good leaders, societies need elections whose purpose is to reject bad and elect good leaders who will take them from poverty to prosperity, from ignorance to knowledge.

From time immemorial, the difference in societies depends on the difference in their leadership. Societies of progressive leaders advance and those of backward leaders, retrogress.

So will Kenyans elect backward or progressive leaders on 4th March? If Kenyans seek future damnation, they will elect useless and greedy leaders. If they want heaven on earth, they will elect selfless, caring, hard working and sacrificing leaders. But how shall people know the good from bad leaders?

Jesus said people shall know a tree by its fruits. Unfortunately, many Kenyans think money and negative ethnicity are fruits and conditions of good leaders.

Others don't care who is and who is not elected. This is why Kenya and Africa has so much poverty of leadership. But before we look at who might make good leaders, let us first say good leadership is never bought in an election turned into a public auction where leadership goes to the highest bidder or won through ethnicity.

To qualify good leadership should have ideology. A leader without ideology is a ship or plane without compass. It is bound to get lost in the stormy sea of life. Good leaders are however guided by good ideologies like social democracy and bad leaders are guided by bad ideologies like negative ethnicity or greed.

A leader devoid of good ideology will take people nowhere. A leader of good ideology is also a leader of integrity. You cannot be dishonest or corrupt and be a good leader.

A good leader must have eyes of the body, mind and soul to see farther than those he leads. A leader who is intellectually blind and ideologically empty will take society no where except into darkness and death.

If a good leader wants the country to develop, he or she must chose between capitalism and socialism as the vehicle that will take the people there.

But taking people to the land of milk and honey is organizing society to solve its problems of poverty, corruption, hunger, unemployment, disease.

Without solving problems of the majority people will never reach Canaan. Unavoidably a good leader cannot be a coward. He or she must have courage to champion truth and justice however difficult or painful. But as good leaders have what they must do, they also have what they must never do.

A good leader must never divide people by preaching hate among them. Nor should a good leader discriminate against people by giving some and denying some.

A good leader does not steal and is never a thief. A leader who robs and then gives hand outs cannot be a good leader. A good leader does not preach water and drink wine.

Those who preach peace publicly but propagate negative ethnicity secretly are not good leaders. And while communities may embrace their ethnic warlords, they can never make them good leaders of the country. A good leader cannot make his people blind to more easily mislead them.

Nor should a good leader make people slaves for easy exploitation. A good leader must not make himself god over his people by making them beggars who live on crumbs from his feasting table.

Ultimately a good leader does not use police to kill the voice of the people who want to question him. Are Kenyans ready for good leaders or are good leaders not yet born?